Immigration minister Jason Kenney apologizes to Alberta’s deputy premier for dropping ‘A-bomb’ to describe him

Citizenship and Immigration minister Jason Kenney has apologized to Alberta's deputy premier for calling him a "complete and utter asshole" in an email that was leaked to the public.

According to the Edmonton Journal, Kenney wrote the invective email last Wednesday at 5:02 p.m. in response to an email sent from the office of MP Blaine Calkins, chairman of the federal Conservatives Alberta caucus, who wanted to know if Kenney and other MPs from Alberta would meet with Alberta's deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk.

"Honourable Thomas Lukaszuk, deputy premier of Alberta will be in Ottawa on Thursday, June 21st, 2012 and is requesting a lunch or dinner with caucus," said the email.

"Mr. Calkins will not be able to host this event as he has prior commitments, but would like to see if there is any caucus member who would be willing to host this event for the deputy premier."

Kenney responded just five minutes later, but instead of sending it only to Calkins' office, he accidentally pressed 'reply all' and sent it to everyone in the 26-member federal Alberta caucus, plus their assistants:

"I say a definite 'no' to Lukaszyk. I don't think it makes sense to create a precedent to do a special caucus meeting for every visiting minister from the provincial government. Plus he is a complete and utter asshole."

As the Journal reports, Lukaszuk and Kenney have battled in the past over immigration and employment issues. Plus, it's no secret that many federal Conservatives were strongly rooting for the Wildrose Party to snatch the reins away from the Progressive Conservatives in the recent provincial election.

Kenney's office initially had little to say about the gaffe but in an email to Yahoo! Canada News, on Tuesday afternoon, Kenney's press secretary Alexis Pavlich said Kenney has apologized.

"The Minister spoke with Minister Lukaszuk to apologize for the email message, and to underscore that he looks forward to continuing with the positive working relationship between the Alberta and federal governments."

Kenney isn't the first person to be hit with a bout of 'reply-all-itis"

It's an infliction that affects a lot of us. Many of us have been embarrassed by pressing 'reply all' on an email when we didn't mean to.

But, unfortunately for Kenney, his inadvertent 'reply all' email went public.